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Dust, Sweat and Rock & Roll

Friday my beau and I played hookey and headed to Rockingham, NC, for a couple nights of "camping" (sleeping in a tent next to our car, next to hundreds of other people doing the same thing) and rock and roll at Carolina Rebellion.

Let's camp: Friday afternoon, just before leaving.

Friday night, campers were treated to an exclusive concert featuring a couple of fantastic tribute bands (including Lez Zeppelin- check them out if you're a fan of Led), and an extremely over-the-top group called Foxy Shazam. This private show was a blast and such a fantastic way to get our weekend started.

Saturday morning, music started around 11 and continued on for 13 straight hours with 17 different bands culminating in a couple spectacular after-dark performances by major headliners.

Standing about 1/4 of the way back from the stage. The crowd continues like this all the way back to the entrance.

Last year the head count for this show was somewhere around 30,000 people. No word yet on the numbers for this year- but I expect turnout was even greater than last. This was by far the largest one day concert I've ever attended.

Wall to wall people in every direction. Best people watching. Ever.

This rock & roll stuff is sweaty business, especially in 90 degree heat and unrelenting sun. We were fortunate to have an occasional gust of wind which cooled us but also covered us in dust. Needless to say, I was not the only one that was thankful when the sun went down. I would have been even more thankful for a quick rainstorm to wash off all the dust.

About one song into Evanescence's set, I got bored and started to photograph the phenomenal perigee "super moon." I put the camera away when Korn took the stage (I had been patiently waiting all day for this) and delivered an incredible performance including a fantastic cover of Pink Floyd's "The Wall."

I may not look the part anymore, but a little piece of me will always belong to hard rock/metal- once a creepy kid, always a creepy kid, I guess.

This morning we packed up our camp and returned home to spend the rest of the day rehydrating and trying to regain our hearing (I feel old!). All in all, it was a fantastic weekend.